Bliss (opera)

Bliss is an opera in three acts by Brett Dean to a libretto by Amanda Holden. The libretto is based on Peter Carey's novel Bliss, which had earlier been made into the 1985 film Bliss. The opera premiered at the Sydney Opera House on 12 March 2010 and has subsequently been performed in the United Kingdom and Germany. A performance of the work lasts for about two hours and forty minutes.

The development of this work suffered several setbacks over the years. Simone Young was musical director of Opera Australia when it commissioned Brett Dean and Amanda Holden to write this work. Soon after, Young left Opera Australia and took up the position of artistic director (Intendant) of the Hamburg State Opera. Her successor, Richard Hickox, also supported the work; but he died in 2008. Then, the Australian National Academy of Music, of which Brett Dean is the Artistic Director, was threatened with the loss of its funding from the Australian federal government.

During the development of the opera, Dean wrote the orchestral piece Moments of Bliss, which premiered on 2 December 2004 at Hamer Hall, Melbourne, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Markus Stenz. Dean composed the role of Harry Joy specifically for Peter Coleman-Wright; three of this role's arias were sung by Coleman-Wright in a concert on 2 October 2008 under the title Songs of Joy with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle.

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